The
initial entry in the MGM Tarzan films opens at a trading post where
two white traders, James Parker and Harry Holt, are preparing to
leave on a safari to find the fabled elephants' graveyard. The
former's daughter Jane arrives unexpectedly and despite paternal
protests insists on accompanying them.

In the face of hostile
natives and a forbidding escarpment, the safari reaches the domain of
Tarzan, a white man raised by apes. The "white savage"
kidnaps Jane, and after a period of adjustment during which fear
becomes affection, the girl dutifully returns to her father.

The safari is subsequently
captured by savage dwarfs and taken to their village to be sacrificed
to a giant gorilla. But Tarzan arrives followed by his elephant
friends, who demolish the village while Tarzan rescues the trio of
white people.

Unfortunately, Parker has
been mortally wounded by the gorilla and wishes only to let a dying
elephant guide them to the elephants' graveyard, where he dies and is buried.

Jane decides to remain with
Tarzan. Holt will return alone to civilization, but Jane is certain
that he will be back with another safari, and the next time, he will
need not fear, for Tarzan will be there to help.

Commentary

Studio
advertising notwithstanding,
Tarzan, the Ape Man
was finished rather quickly. Weissmuller was signed October 16, 1931,
Maureen O'Sullivan two weeks later, and filming began the day after.
The film's initial lensing was completed December 28, some eight
weeks after it began, and the first theatrical preview occurred early
in February 1932. The cost was listed at $652,675. The profits, based
on world-wide returns of five years after its theatrical release,
were $919,000.

Hume was assigned scripting
duties, and his first draft submitted June 19 picks up where Trader
Horn left off. Horn agrees to act as a guide to locate a lost tribe
of moon worshippers who live in a ruined city and make regular human
sacrifices to a sacred gorilla.

En route, the safari encounters
Tarzan, who abducts a member of the party, a woman scientist.

He eventually returns the woman to
her group and the party continues its search. When the safari is
captured by the ancient tribe and condemned to be sacrificed, Tarzan
and his elephants arrive and rescue the group. The woman decides to
remain with Tarzan, and Horn and the rest of the safari return to the
trading post.

This script makes one think a
little of the Opar-Tarzan stories penned by Edgar Rice Burroughs.
Perhaps ERB thought so too, or maybe the studio executives did not
like the plot, and preferred something a little more contemporary in
setting. Whatever the reason, all that remained from Hume's original
concept were the episode with the giant gorilla and the elephant
stampede. The finished script was submitted in September 1931.

Cast as Weissmuller's rival for
O'Sullivan's affections, Neil Hamilton was a good choice. He was born
September 9, 1899 in Lynn, Massachusetts. Despite a calling , not to
mention his father's wishes, to enter the priesthood, a chance
encounter at a film shoot near his home town changed his mind. From
that moment on, his sole ambition was to become an actor.

At 18, he quit school and went to
Fort Lee, New Jersey, where his natural good looks got him a
modelling job for the prestigious Arrow Collars. In 1920, he posed
for a Norman Rockwell Saturday Evening Post cover , and in 1922 , he
married Elsa Whitmer, with whom he would spend the remainder of his life.

In 1923 he signed a contract with
D. W. Griffith, his first film being The
White Rose, for which he was touted
by film pundits as an up-and-coming star. From 1925 to 1930 he worked
at Paramount before signing with MGM.

1939 was a turning point in
Hamilton's career. First, he was financially ruined by an investment
in the San Francisco World's Fair. Then his acting career plummeted
because of ill-advised comments about important people like Dore
Schary, usually spoken under the influence of alcohol. By 1943 he was
living in a $60 a month apartment, earning $50 a week as a leg man
for an actors' agency.

At about this time and by his own
admission he even contemplated suicide. Then things turned around.
First, he went to work at Universal at $600 a week. Then came Theatre
and Television. In 1948, he became an MC for a TV show called
Hollywood Screen Test.

In the 1960s, he was hired to play
the Commissioner on the camp TV series Batman. And in 1969, he did a
cameo for Norman Rockwell's America calling to mind the cover he had
posed for in 1920.

On September 24, 1984 Hamilton
passed away from complications arising from a severe case of asthma.

Even by today's standards, Tarzan,
the Ape Man is
a fine adventure film. But to judge it fairly, one has to consider
the age in which it was made. Prior to 1932, the Tarzan films were
silent, and the histrionics were exaggerated to compensate for the
lack of sound. And with the possible exception of Frank Merrill, the
physiques of the actors who portrayed Edgar Rice Burroughs' ape man,
left much to be desired. Moreover, MGM was the first major studio to
attempt a grade A feature film of the jungle lord. Add to that Irving
Thalberg's motion picture genius, and the result had to be splendid.
Even Edgar Rice Burroughs, who regularly complained about the manner
in which his jungle hero was portrayed on screen, was enthusiastic,
and in a letter he communicated this enthusiasm to the film's director.

My dear Mr. Van Dyke:

When I was told that you had
been selected to direct Tarzan, the Ape Man
for M-G-M I was naturally delighted,and now that I have seen the
picture, I wish to express my appreciation of the splendid job you
have done.

This is a real Tarzan picture.
It breathes the grim mystery of the jungle; the endless, relentless
strife for survival; the virility, the cruelty, and the grandeur of
Nature in the raw.

Mr. Weissmuller makes a great
Tarzan. He has youth, a marvelous physique, and a magnetic personality.

Miss O'Sullivan is perfect - I
am afraid that I shall never be satisfied with any other heroine for
my future pictures - and Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Smith have added a
lustre of superb character delineation to the production that has
helped to make it the greatest Tarzan picture of them all.

And then there is little
Cheetah! If she doesn't steal the show, I miss my guess. She is $2
entertainment all by herself.

Again let me thank you for the
ability, the genius, and the hard work you have put into Tarzan,
the Ape Man; and permit me to express
the hope that you may direct my latest Tarzan novel, Tarzan,
the Invincible, when it is filmed

Van Dyke was pleased with the
letter, and it was reprinted in the trade papers.

The reason is obvious. It was far
above the expectations anyone might have had, and the principal
actors, Johnny Weissmuller and Maureen O'Sullivan, proved to be the
ideal couple.

A great deal of thought went into
mood, balance of tension and comedy, tenderness and brutality, and
dialogue. Indeed, as was typical of MGM, many story conferences were
held to iron out logistical problems, as well as to make the
incredible, credible. Such things as Jane Parker's being British,
rather than American, her renunciation of a vapid society existence,
her implicit rejection of Holt because he desires the very things she
has come to Africa to give up, the importance of a light-hearted mood
at the outset to offset the drama that is to follow, all these and
other details merited regular discussions by relevant studio
personnel, including Ivor Novello, to whom much credit must be given
for his vision of the central characters. And in one of these
conferences, producer Bernie Hyman defined the approach to Tarzan
that would dominate for the next several decades. “In all
contact with the white people, Jane should act as interpreter and
interlocutor; Tarzan’s reaction being instinctive and intuitive,
rather than an intellectual reaction to dialogue...” He felt
that if Tarzan were to be made articulate, it would make him common,
a not unreasonable perspective given the ape man's lack of contact
with his own kind during his formative years.

As MGM was known as a
“producers' studio,” meaning that directors followed
instructions from Irving Thalberg without question, one has to assume
that Thalberg had a great deal of input, despite the fact that his
name appears nowhere in the credits, a probability that is
strengthened by the fact that Thalberg never wanted his name to
appear in the credits, and books dealing with the subject do not
dwell on his involvement. Yet, Woody Van Dyke was known as a Thalberg
director, and accordingly, he would have followed his boss’s
advice implicitly. And given the wunderkind’s
gilt-edged instincts, such a scenario is entirely reasonable. But,
this in no way detracts from Van Dyke's skill as a director. His
background and past performances are satisfactory evidence that much
of the credit for the film lies with him.

Clearly, the film’s
beginning, as a last link to civilization is intended to contrast
with the ensuing trek into the jungle. It allows one of the main
protagonists, Jane Parker, to make the transition, after clearly
explaining what she has left and what she hopes to find. Her
femininity, coupled with her adventurous and determined spirit, not
to mention her dexterity at handling firearms, provide the viewer the
needed guarantee that she belongs, in somewhat the same way that Ann
Darrow does for King Kong. The beginning of the film also allows for
a substantial quantity of footage from the Trader Horn expedition,
something that Thalberg undoubtedly had in mind, even though much of
the footage had been ruined in transit.

The second element that is
carefully contrived is the Mutia Escarpment, a forbidden zone, so
terrifying in its mystery that local natives are put to death by
tribal witch doctors merely for having looked at it. Its secrets
guarded through the centuries by the hostile savages render its
discovery all the more alluring, especially since its primary
interest for the white man is the fabled elephants’ graveyard,
that ‘strip of land so devout in its implications to jungle book
fanciers that one could only assume the elephants took instruction in
the church before dying’ (humourist,
Jules Feiffer). This paves the way
for the plot ingredient that would service so many of the Tarzan
films, the dependable greed of the white man. Indeed, even when the
dominant theme is something else, behind it lurks the omnipresent
hope of financial gain.

The fact that Tarzan does
not appear for the first 33 minutes of the film must be attributed to
a desire for suspense, making the jungle lord’s initial
appearance all the more receptive to an eager audience. Again, King
Kong comes to mind as an apt comparison.

Even before she meets
Tarzan, Jane is not really responsive to Holt’s overtures to her.

Jane.
You're very silent. Holt. I feel very
silent. You know, Jane. I’m not a romantic sort of person or anything like that.
But if we uh,...if we get through this all right, is there any kind of chance
for me? Jane. With me? I don't
know; I haven't thought about it much. Holt. Well, will you? I
thought I hated this country. Since you’re here, I almost love it. Jane. Do you Harry? I'm
very glad. Holt. Are you? Jane. Glad you like Africa. Holt. Oh, poof. (Jane
laughs) Now, you're laughing at me. Jane. A little bit,
perhaps. But very tenderly.

Of course, when she finally meets Tarzan and has overcome her initial
fear of him, the audience must realize that any hope Holt might have
had for Jane is gone. Holt must realize it too. His solicitude when
Jane disappears gradually turns to jealousy. Who is the savage now?
His lack of feeling is revealed in the following scene.

Holt.
Am I interrupting anything serious? Parker. Jane’s got
a theory you were wrong in killing that ape. Holt. Wrong? Parker. Well, cruel. Holt. To whom? (Holt laughs.) Jane. Why do you laugh. Harry? Holt. Well, isn't that
the best thing to do? Jane. Is it funny? Holt. Funny?
Extremely... that you should be considering the feelings of a man-ape. It’s a
pity I didn't put two bullets in it while I was at it and finish the job. Jane. I wouldn’t
talk like that. Don’t you think it’s being a little melodramatic and absurd? Holt. Absurd? Jane. Extremely.

This
subplot evanesces as the savage dwarfs enter the scene. Almost like
the behaviour of the black Africans in Trader
Horn, these
little people are portrayed as bloodthirsty butchers, whose favourite
entertainment is lowering captives into a pit to be mangled by a
giant gorilla.

Much of western
society’s view of primitive Africans is a fanciful one, often
fed by novelists who had little real knowledge of the dark continent.
It is doubtful that these primitive societies were any worse or
better than so-called civilized ones. Still, from the purview of
films like the MGM Tarzans, the untamed tribes in all six films
reflected this stereotypical portrait.

One of the unknown factors
in the production of the film was the acting abilities of its new
star, Johnny Weissmuller. And as subsequent films have amply
demonstrated, his thespian talents were never more than adequate, and
his voice did not correspond to the character he portrayed. Yet, his
athletic body and expressive face more than compensated for the
deficiency, nor was this approach to Weissmuller’s performance
lost on the critics.

One-Take Woody Van Dyke
allowed his cameramen more time with the female stars, and it seems
clear that he did the same for Weissmuller. It also explains his
paucity of dialogue, although as Sol Lesser has pointed out, the
relatively meagre dialogue had a more practical basis: the fact that
much of the studio’s income for this and similar films derived
from international sources.

The New York Evening Post
wrote: “There is no doubt that [Weissmuller] possessed all the
attributes. both physical and mental, for the complete realization of
this son-of-the-jungle role. With his flowing hair, his magnificently
proportioned body, his catlike walk, and his virtuosity in the water,
you could hardly ask anything more in the way of perfection.”

Variety spoke of the
“fine artless performance by the Olympian athlete.”

And from the Literary
Digest...“A subtle touch of the animal nature in Tarzan is
indicated in his frequent turning of the head, in his alertness in
the presence of danger. It was something shown by Nijinsky in his
impersonation of the Fawn.”

Of the technical aspects,
we should note that one of the more important camera shots involved
the elephant stampede. Circus pachyderms, with fake ears and tusks to
simulate the African variety, were photographed from several angles
including a pit shot, to recreate this exciting moment in the film.
The inspiration for this came from Merian C. Cooper's and Ernest B.
Shoedsack's expeditionary docudrama, Chang,
made in 1927. These images would be later used as stock footage for
many jungle films, not just the MGM Tarzans. The choreography for
this action sequence was rehearsed for five days before the actual
camera work.

The sequence involving the
safari crossing a lake on rafts and being attacked by hippos was
photographed at Lake Sherwood. Following the filming of this
sequence, one of the hippos was reported missing. The animal had
apparently preferred to remain in the water. A “get the hippo
out of the lake” memo was circulated at MGM for a week until the
animal decided, on its own, to return to dry land.

The final scenes following
the death of Jane’s father were shot at Iverson’s Ranch in
a canyon to the east of Garden of the Gods.

Tarzan,
the Ape Man
enjoyed an exceptional preview in February 1932, and was scheduled to
open nationwide in March. The Lindbergh kidnapping, March 2, which
garnered national attention, saw the opening postponed until March
25. The film opened in Canada three weeks later.

While the Hays Office did
exist at the time Tarzan,
the Ape Man was
made, it did not yet wield the clout that it would under Joseph
Breen two years later when Tarzan
and His Mate was
made. This did not prevent state agencies from exercising their own
brand of censorship of Hollywood’s product. In New York, Dr.
James Wingate, the director of the Motion Picture Division of the
State Government, who would shortly be seconded to replace Colonel
Joy in Hollywood, insisted on several excisions, such as the view of
the crocodile dragging a native from a raft, and the close-up views
of the natives being suspended and then lowered into the torture pit,
claiming that such sights were inhuman and would “tend to incite
to crime.” Similar views were held by the Pennsylvania
censorship authorities. Yet other states, notably Illinois, Ohio,
Virginia and Maryland passed the film without elimination.

The Tarzan fever that
gripped the public following the release of Tarzan,
the Ape Man
was demonstrated in the record-breaking attendance throughout the
country. The rush was so great Saturday and Sunday that they
advertised in the morning’s paper that they are forced to put on
seven shows a day, starting at about 9 a.m.

Such an unexpected success
made it clear that MGM was not about to stop at one film.

An original 1932 trade ad

Reviews

The New York Times

Youngsters home from school
yesterday found the Capitol a lively place, with all sorts of thrills
in the picture "Tarzan, the Ape Man," and Johnny
Weissmuller as the hero; a so-called ape man; lions and leopards as
villains, apes for comedy relief, and elephants that aroused one's
sympathy and admiration.

It is a cleverly
photographed film and, although some adults may doubt that Mr.
Weissmuller kills two lions and a leopard with a knife, after a
prolonged struggle, there is good enough camera trickery for lads and
lassies and mayhap a few parents to believe that Johnny Weissmuller
took his life in his hands when he agreed to act in this jungle feature.

Another player who has a rough
time is Maureen O'Sullivan, who plays Jane Parker, the heroine of
this pictorial transcription of Edgar Rice Burroughs' tale. Miss
O'Sullivan is snatched from the ground and carried by Tarzan to his
abode in the trees. Tarzan, being on excellent terms with apes whose
lingo he appears to know, warns these beasts that the white girl is
not to be killed or harmed. At least one presumes this, for, ape man
or not, he falls in love with Jane and she with him. His vocabulary
of English is as limited as that of a dog, and therefore it is all
the more amusing when the girl, after trying to teach the jungle man
to say "You" and "Me," asks him to let her see
the color of his eyes. But she appreciates that Tarzan cannot
understand her and so she, in spite of being a captive for the second
time, coolly suggests that he knock when he enters her boudoir.

The scenes wherein Tarzan swings
from tree to tree and takes a high dive into a lake are done most
effectively. He makes a peculiar cry, a noise like blowing on a comb
covered with paper, when he requires assistance. The elephants are
usually on the qui vive and they lumber along to Tarzan and help him
or his friends.

This fantastic affair is filmed
with a sense of humor. W.S. Van Dyke, producer of "Trader
Horn," was at the helm in the making of this tale, in which
Harry Holt, Jane, James Parker, Jane's father, and others are bent on
trying to find the legendary spot known as the "Elephants'
burial ground," where there is supposed to be millions of
dollars' worth of ivory. Whether there is or not matters little, for
old Parker, played by C. Aubrey Smith, never lives to tell, and Jane
elects to stay in the jungle with Tarzan, who, it might be said, is
an apt pupil in learning to talk English as time goes on. It is to be
construed that he who seeks the ivory will meet his end before he can
get his men to dig up the tusks. Perhaps it is the curse of the elephants.

As a side issue here, there are a
number of hippopotamuses who take great pride in extending their
cavernous mouths. Mr. Van Dyke probably brought some of the pictures
of the wild beasts back from his trip to Africa, but through crafty
ideas and neat photography. Messrs. Aubrey Smith, Neil Hamilton, who
appears as Harry Holt; Maureen O'Sullivan and others find themselves,
or their shadows, in the midst of Africa. And besides lions, leopards
and what not, there are also dwarfed blacks and real savages, some of
them with amazing decorations on their physiognomies.

Mr. Weissmuller does good work as
Tarzan and Miss O'Sullivan is alert as Jane. Mr. Aubrey Smith makes
the most of his part.

Variety

A jungle and stunt picture, done
in deluxe style and carrying large draw possibilities from the
following of the Burroughs book series. Tricky handling of fantastic
atmosphere, a fine, artless performance by the Olympic athlete that
represents the absolute best that could be done with the character
and the nationwide interest that attaches to the printed original
looks like surefire box office.

Picture itself, aside from the
book interest, will carry the release, which has multiple angles of
appeal. Footage is loaded with a wealth of sensational wild animal
stuff. Suspicion is unavoidable that some of it is cut-in material
left over from the same producer's "Trader Horn" (done by
the same director, by the way). These sequences have the stamp of
verity, laying a convincing background for other matter that must
have been done by technical tricks. The real thing is so obviously
genuine that when they do work with a camera trick conviction is so
set that the well-managed phonies never arouse suspicion.

The idyllic side of the story has
been shrewdly handled and fortified by romantic settings and
pictorial beauty that entirely disarm the grotesque situation of a
civilized English girl falling in love with a young jungle savage, be
he ever so ideal in stature and courage. Sequence of the young people
splashing about a forest pool, for instance, has in it enough of
visual beauty to discount any feeling of unreasonableness in the
romantic situation. Be the situation however implausible, the mere
poetic beauty of the backgrounds make it all charming.

Some of the stunt episodes are
grossly overdone, but once more the production skill and literary
treatment in other directions compensates for exaggerations. Tarzan
is pictured as achieving impossible feats of strength and daring. One
of them has him battling singlehanded and armed only with an
inadequate knife, not only with one lion, but with a succession of a
panther and two lions, and saved at the last minute from still a
third big cat only by the friendly help of an elephant summoned by a
call of distress in jungle language.

Some of these incidents invited a
mild giggle, but startling graceful leaps among the tree tops by
Weissmuller, swinging through the branches on creeper vines and
bending tree boughs provide the progress of the weird tale with
persuasive action. The athletic Johnny, in short, makes Tarzan
believable, because he does with seeming ease and naturalness the
things Tarzan would do.

The wild animal stuff is
remarkably well managed. There is, for one thing, a monkey in the
simian colony, of which Tarzan is a part, a medium-sized chimpanzee
that is the last word in animal acting, the ultimate in animal high
comedy, fleeing in terror from a pursuing lion, carrying messages for
Tarzan, or making friends with the girl.

Picture has its thrills. One of
them is Tarzan's swimming of a wide river, pursued by alligators,
only to be saved in the nick of time by a friendly hippopotamus which
swims up, takes the hero on its back and ferries him safely to shore.
This trick was accomplished with utmost realism, although the
inference is obvious that it was a device. What carried it over was a
previous sequence showing a river full of hippopotami, probably a
dozen or 15, and likely a cut-in from the genuine stuff gathered for
"Trader Horn." Once the idea was planted, the subsequent
trick slipped by.

Story that introduces the Tarzan
character is slight, but played by the cast assembled with simple
directness that makes it as acceptable as possible. An English trader
(C. Aubrey Smith) and his young partner (Neil Hamilton) are about to
start in search of the traditional elephants' graveyard where ivory
abounds, when the elder man's daughter from England (Maureen
O'Sullivan) appears at the trading post and insists upon going along.
The three start on their dangerous project with a crowd of African
natives. The adventures grow out of their travels, ending with their
capture by a band of pygmies (where they gathered half a hundred
dwarfs for the purpose is another Hollywood miracle) and escape when
Tarzan once more alls upon his elephant friends for a final sequence
recall, by its rush and whirl, the finish of "Chang."

Miss O'Sullivan acquits herself
well in a difficult role, while the performance of Weissmuller really
makes the picture. Whether the swimming champ will ever find another
such outre role to play is the barrier to his career on the screen,
but for this production he's a smash.